Onto Kamilaroi Country: Merriwa to Quirindi - The Reunion Ride - CycleBlaze

Onto Kamilaroi Country: Merriwa to Quirindi - The Reunion Ride - CycleBlaze

From The Reunion Ride

By Graham Smith

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October 1, 2014

Onto Kamilaroi Country: Merriwa to Quirindi

The plan for today was simple.
Ride along a beautiful valley, then up and over a big hill. Stop. Look at the grand view.
Then ride down the hill.

Following is pictorial evidence of the aforesaid plan being actioned:

Sleeping trucker. We were up early enough to avoid traffic.

The Willow Tree road. Quiet, scenic and easy gradients along the valley floor. Almost perfect cycle-touring.

Parked farm machinery by the roadside

More of the valley in the early morning light.

Typical cropping and grazing farm of the area

The Coolah Tops national park on the horizon.

Coal seam gas exploration is not welcome in this productive agricultural area

The climb begins as we run out of valley floor.

He is a big lad! Stay .... stay ... heel...whoa... keep those doggies moving. The helmet is Orange...not Red.

Old farm house in the upper valley

Getting toward the top of the climb

And this is the top of the Liverpool Range. More accurately, it is John standing at the high point of of our backroad crossing of the Liverpool Range. From here it is a long downhill roll.

The Liverpool Plains...my home-patch. Many generations of our family have lived in this region.It's a special feeling cycling across the Liverpool Range and seeing this rich soil region from this high point. Observant readers will note that the Liverpool Plains are not uniformly flat:)Hard to believe, but this prime agricultural country is under imminent threat by coal mining. Blind freddy can see this land should be kept for long term food production, not destroyed for short term profit.

The one truck which passed us on the crossing of the range

The descent was on unsealed road. The Thorn Audax handled it well even on its skinny tyres.

Broadacre farming is a popular thing to do here. These are not hobby farms. They are seriously wide paddocks.It's one of the most productive agricultural regions of Australia. No wonder they are twitchy about coal and gas.

Farmers are very concerned about the damage fracking does to aquifers.So am I.Fracker's track record is not good. I would rather soil produce food for thousands of years than produce gas for a few decades.

Typical of the road into Quirindi ... very quiet.

This is For Sale if anyone is interested.

A renovators delight

The Kamilaroi are the traditional owners of the region. This highway is the only one in Australia named after Aboriginal people.

John enters Quirindi with a flourish of speed.

...in Quirindi

Our accommodation in Quirindi...the Terminus Hotel opposite the railway station.

Most Australian country towns have a memorial to locals killed on service in the world wars. This is Quirindi's. It's heartbreaking if you think about this. The number of Australian families (including ours) affected by the slaughter of World War I particularly is impossible to comprehend. And 100 years later, Australian military are still engaged on the other side of the world. This time they are over Syria.

Confused? I was.

I suppose it is good they let drug affected pedestrians do some activity

Today's ride: 93 km (58 miles)
Total: 634 km (394 miles)

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